Disclosing Paul Auster

Let’s start with one of Auster’s quotations. I would love you to respond to it. So … activate your brains and unlock your imagination. Let’s see if as a starter, this can tickle your appetite for one of America’s leading contemporary writers. "Whenever I complete a book, I’m filled with a feeling of immense disgust and disappointment. It’s almost a physical collapse. I’m so disappointed by my feeble efforts that I can’t believe I’ve actually spent so much time and accomplished so little. It takes years before I’m able to accept what I’ve done – to realize that this was the best I could do. But I never like to look at the things I’ve written. The past is the past, and there’s nothing I can do about it any more. The only thing that counts is the project I’m working on now. Beckett once said in one of his stories, ‘No sooner is the ink dry that it revolts me’". (from "The Red Notebook")

52 risposte a Disclosing Paul Auster

This post reveals that Paul Auster writes his books with all possible efforts. He would always be able to give something more; he would be able to express better what he think and what he feels. For this reason when he finishes a book he has a sense of incompleteness and disgust: even if it is plagued by the feeling of not having done everything possible, he understands that he has given the best of himself.

Before reading this quotation I have never thought that a writer could be dissatisfied with his work. But this kind of feeling that Paul Auster denounces is something absolutely natural and spontaneous in people: for example I often feel dissatisfied with what I has just written, first of all because writing takes a long time and not always the results are good, then because is it difficult to explain our emotions, so that sometimes I have the impression that words are not enough to describe accurately our thoughts. What is important, however, is not to despise our work, and recognize that we have tried to do everything possible (even if this process can take us years, as pointed out by Paul Auster).

Hi folks! With all your feedback, now you have plenty of possible input for interesting questions to pose when you see/meet Paul Auster this coming spring. One possible question could be: “Is there any specific work of yours you like looking back to?” “What project are you working on at the moment?” “In what way do you reckon Beckett has somehow inspired your writing?”

As I pointed out on various occasions, do keep a page where you record possible questions you’d like to ask.